BODILY LANGUAGE IN THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES OF GERTRUD THE GREAT OF HELFTA1 by ProQuest

[...] the words of each exercise are intended to be recited aloud, even corporeally and communally performed (in accord with its liturgical inspiration as well as medieval reading practice), rather than mentally contemplated.2 Moreover, the Exercises are written almost entirely from a female perspective, using feminine grammatical endings in the Latin original or replacing masculine nouns with feminine ones.3 To be sure, such meditations differ from the psalms and liturgical prayers, which address God from the viewpoint of a male sinner or male devotee.

BODILY LANGUAGE IN THE SPIRITUAL
EXERCISES OF GERTRUD THE GREAT OF
HELFTA1
Ella L. Johnson
University of St. Michael’s College
Toronto, Ontario
he Documenta spiritualium exercitionum of
Gertrud the Great, thirteenth century
visionary of the Benedicitine-Cistercian
abbey of Helfta, teaches the devotional
experience of an embodied kind of unio mystica. The text
prescribes seven recommended spiritual practices, freely based
on patterns of oral formulae and bodily sensation from the Bible
and liturgical rites.

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